Unpacking Ideologies Shaping Cleopatra’s Representations

Abstract: This paper examines how hegemonic ideologies and discourses shape public representations of ancient history, including in popular culture. Ideally speaking, classroom practices need to foster critical engagement with various historical narratives as well as exclusionary discourses. This is particularly true in the case of Egypt, where a dominant Eurocentric gaze has generally negated and vilified some of that history’s key dimensions.
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2023-22093
Languages: English

What was the colour of Queen Cleopatra’s skin? Does it matter? Netflix’s recent documentary-drama series about the ancient Egyptian queen has stirred ongoing debates around these questions and the way historical events and figures are portrayed.

International Controversy

The controversy stems from the decision to cast a Black actress in the lead role as Cleopatra. Netflix’s docudrama has prompted debates and criticism.[1] Egypt’s Supreme Council of Archaeology issued an official response, stating that “Queen Cleopatra was light-skinned” and had “Hellenic features.”[2] Further, Egypt announced that it will produce its own fact-based documentary series to reveal that Cleopatra was in fact light skinned.[3]

Additionally, given Cleopatra’s Greek Macedonian origins, Greek sources have also argued that “[a]s one of the most famous historical figures of both cultures … Cleopatra should be portrayed “accurately” as a way of respecting the culture and heritage of Greece and Egypt.”[4] Critics have also highlighted that being labelled as a “documentary,” and not a historical fiction, is what makes such representation problematic.[5]

Those arguing against a Black actress playing Cleopatra have accused the documentary of historical falsification and cultural appropriation.[6] In her response, Adele James, lead actress of the documentary series, dismissed critics as “racist.”[7]

Rendering Hegemonic Discourses More Visible 

At play in this controversy — and arguably not discussed enough — are hegemonic discourses and ideologies that shape historical representations. If our aim is to encourage more inclusive and constructive dialogues that could help create and promote more balanced representations, those hegemonic discourses need to be deconstructed and critically engaged with.

Hegemonic discourses and worldviews succeed when they present themselves as the “common sense,” logical, and “taken-for-granted” universal ways to see and read the world, hiding the motives and interests that their historical representations serve.[8] Drawing on some earlier analyses of film representations as well as my own analyses of how school textbooks represent ancient civilizations in Canada[9] and in Egypt,[10] I argue that, ideally speaking, classroom practices need to foster critical engagement with various historical narratives as well as hegemonic discourses.

When it comes to Netflix’s Cleopatra controversy, there is more than one discourse or ideology at play, which inform the different sides of this controversy — the series’ producers, their supporters, and their critics. For the sake of demonstration, I highlight three key discourses that are implicated and intertwined in different ways in shaping and informing this controversy.

Negated Historical Achievements

First is a hegemonic discourse that seeks to negate particular peoples’ historical achievements, thus seeking to strip away their sense of self-worth and agency. Brazilian theorist and scholar Paulo Freire (1970/2000) reminds us that the success of oppressive colonial projects required a clear negation and demonization of local cultures, including their spiritual beliefs and practices, stripping people of their sense of dignity and self-worth.[11] Similarly, in his seminal book Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson (1983/2006) reminded us of other colonial strategies, including representing an ancient civilization as not having been built by a nation’s contemporary citizens or natives, but foreigners, as Dutch colonial powers did to demoralize colonized peoples of the East Indies.[12]

Further, we have seen this manifest in the brutal and violent history of enslavement, which necessitated — and thus, went hand in hand with — negating ancient African histories and vilifying Africa’s Indigenous religions and wisdom traditions.[13]  This discourse and its historical representations have been used and deployed by modern colonial projects and continue to be deployed by other supremacist movements.

Dominant Religion-Based Narratives

Second, and closely related, are dominant and literal interpretations of some of the Abrahamic tradition’s religious-based narratives which generally negate ancient groups that preceded them, especially ancient, non-monotheistic peoples and their wisdom traditions.[14] Those religious-based narratives include the Exodus narrative. The Exodus narrative, which appears in the Torah/Old Testament and in the Quran, remains one of the most influential and widely used scripture stories in the Abrahamic (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) tradition. As prominent German Egyptologist Jan Assmann points out, the Exodus narrative has introduced an unprecedented divide, labeling any pre-Abrahamic, pagan, polytheistic, or nature-based wisdom tradition as superstitious and thus less valuable.[15]

Analyses of the writings of European colonist puritans and pilgrims show that this same Exodus narrative clearly shaped their view of themselves. They often likened themselves to the persecuted Israelites, safely arriving in their God-given “promised land” of North America (ancient Canaan), after fleeing from religious and sectarian persecution in Europe (ancient Egypt).[16]

Importantly, literal interpretations of those scriptures have also led many in societies that have converted to latter religions, such as Christianity or Islam, to continue to struggle with and experience tensions in seeking to reconcile with or fully value their Indigenous and “ancient pagan past” and its beliefs and practices, including in Egypt [17] and in several sub-Saharan African contexts.[18]

Beyond scriptures, it would be helpful to remind ourselves that these hegemonic discourses have often been influenced by and intertwined with the Enlightenment and some of its key teachings and ideals, which have informed modern Western colonialism and education. Forces and movements such as the Enlightenment, and the rise of modernity and the modern nation-state, have further distanced local colonized populations from their Indigenous knowledges and wisdom traditions in arguably more intentional, systematic, and institutionalized ways.[19]

For instance, such a worldview had contributed to non-Western or nature-based knowledges—which often lack a clear distinction between natural and supernatural forces—being generally represented in Western science education as religious superstitions that are impediments to modern society’s progress and development.[20] In some of its more extreme and violent forms, this hegemonic discourse has informed and justified the creation of “residential schools” in some colonized contexts, including in Canada.[21]

Nationalistic Discourses

Third are nationalistic discourses that seek to interpret and represent ancient histories in ways that help solidify a collective national identity, while also normalizing, legitimizing, and justifying particular modern realities and power dynamics. Such representations clearly emerge from textbook analyses in several contexts, including in Egypt and Greece.[22]

Far from being mutually exclusive, these examples of dominant discourses outlined above often overlap, intersect, and reinforce each other. As prominent African American scholar bell hooks (1997) reminded us, hegemonic discourses work in mutually reinforcing matrices, such as a worldview simultaneously being informed by a “White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy.”[23] Critical theorists Joe L. Kincheloe and Peter McLaren (2011) also remind us that “oppression has many faces and that focusing on only one at the expense of others (e.g., class oppression versus racism) often elides the interconnections among them.”[24]

Thus, confronting and challenging those exclusionary discourses and their mutually reinforcing matrices clearly requires concerted and well-coordinated efforts that could help create more inclusive and equitable alternative visions.

(Mis)Representations in Film and Academia

Informed by some of the aforementioned discourses, public representations of ancient Egyptian history often negate and vilify some of that history’s key dimensions. Analysis of some of the key 1950s films such as The Egyptian; Land of the Pharaohs; and The Ten Commandments demonstrate that

“…human rights abuses [in ancient Egypt] are emphasized. … artistic achievements are reduced to a greed for gold objects, and technological innovations are shown to come from outside of Egyptian society … Egyptian religious beliefs are employed to stress the superiority of biblical teachings.”[25]

Further, analyses of some key Hollywood film productions such as The Mummy (Freund, 1932), The Ten Commandments (DeMille, 1956), Stargate (Emmerich, 1994), and The Prince of Egypt (Chapman et al., 1998), reveal how they generally associate ancient Egyptian religion “solely with superstition and tyranny.”[26]  While those depictions are rarely critiqued in public discussions, the US-produced film Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) was critiqued for its predominantly Caucasian cast chosen to represent ancient Egyptians.[27] Refreshingly, some recent productions, including Marvel’s Moon Knight (2022), offer a more accurate depiction at least of ancient Egyptian deities and their attributes.[28]

Relatedly, some academic disciplines, including Egyptology — the study of ancient Egypt — have been critiqued for having been founded on and shaped by hegemonic, colonial discourses. Egyptology scholars such as Christian Langer have reminded us that, since its inception, Egyptology has been “an academic discipline conceived by Europeans for Europeans,” which basically “appropriated Egypt’s ancient heritage.” By doing that, it sidelined key contributions by Egyptian and other non-Western Egyptologists.[29]

Such a dominant Eurocentric gaze has not only worked to distance modern Egyptians from Egypt’s ancient histories, but also generally negated the African rootedness of the ancient Egyptian civilization.[30] In response, some Egyptian scholars have sought to challenge this Eurocentric gaze, including through the analysis of some Medieval Arabic writings that showcase the important and overlooked contributions of non-Western historians and scholars to the study of ancient Egypt.[31]

Critiques of Afrocentrism

We arguably witness some of the success of this Eurocentric gaze and its permeation manifest in widespread critiques of and suspicion of Afrocentrism, including by some Egyptians. Their fear mainly revolves around Afrocentrism as a movement potentially seeking to appropriate and claim the ancient Egyptian civilization as a whole as having been built solely by sub-Saharan Africans, potentially negating connections between modern Egyptians and ancient Egyptians.

For instance, this suspicion manifested in some responses to the “Kemet exhibition” organized by the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) in Leiden, The Netherlands. The exhibition sought to explore “the significance of ancient Egypt and Nubia in the work of artists from the African diaspora.” In reaction to the exhibit and informed by some of those suspicions — that the exhibit was promoting an Afrocentric agenda — Egyptian authorities announced that Egypt has banned the museum “from carrying out excavations in the famous Egyptian necropolis Sakkara.”[32]

Such insights hopefully start to point to the need for more dialogue and the importance of seeking to overcome stereotypes and misunderstandings among these potential allies. Perhaps such dialogue can start with some of those more deeply invested in this issue, including Egyptologists as well as other Afrocentric and Egyptian historians and intellectuals, among others. Arguably, they all share a common plight and cause to resist and challenge the injustice of historical and ongoing misrepresentations and negations of these ancient histories and wisdom traditions. Some calls for this much needed dialogue and reconciliation between those various groups have recently emerged, including from prominent Egyptian historian Khaled Fahmy.[33]

School Textbooks Reinforcing Erasures and Misrepresentations

To further unpack those hegemonic discourses and their significant manifestations in public representations of ancient histories, it would be helpful to turn to school textbook representations. Analyses of school history textbooks of Québec, Canada show that they offer relatively little insight into ancient Afro-Asiatic civilizations, especially when compared to the space and amount of detail afforded to Western (Greco-Roman) civilizations.[34] This also seems to be the case when comparing Canadian provinces’ Québec and Manitoba textbooks.[35] Further, there is relatively little detail offered regarding the significance and continuity of contributions of ancient Afro-Asiatic civilizations.[36] This stands in contrast to Western civilizations that are represented as significant and enduring in key areas, including democracy and architecture.

In addition to including a few details about sub-Saharan African contributions, one Québec textbook actually refers to ancient Egypt as a net borrower civilization, which did not “spread its culture very widely,”[37] mostly benefiting from other civilizations.

Similarly, the California Department of Education K-12 social science framework’s historical representations of ancient non-Western civilizations subtly reflect and propagate exclusionary and hegemonic discourses. Recent textual analyses reveal that the “underlying discourse,” shaping the world history curriculum “reproduced eugenic beliefs of racial development.”[38] Such constructions clearly negate non-Western civilizations and racialized groups, while continuing to reinforce the supremacy of Western civilizations and peoples.

In the case of Egypt, research has shown that Egyptian textbooks do seek to offer a detailed and generally balanced account of ancient Egyptian history. However, they still represent ancient Egypt’s contributions as predominantly one-way,[39] offering very little insight into how other civilizations might have shaped ancient Egypt, including their potential influences on and intercultural exchanges with ancient Egypt.

The overemphasis of the one-way contributions and lack of acknowledgement of exchanges with or influences of other civilizations not only negates those other groups, as well as students identifying with them, such as students of African descent in many Western contexts. It also could feed into a false sense of supremacy and superiority, which is also shaped by a sense of entitlement or indebtedness of other groups towards the ancient civilization that one most closely identifies with. Ethnographic research in Egypt has shown that some Egyptian students who have critical tendencies — who had graduated public schools and had an opportunity to reflect back on their school education — problematized Egyptian history textbooks’ overfocus on one-way contributions of the ancient Egyptian civilization.[40]

In terms of racial diversity of ancient Egypt, Egyptian textbooks do discuss racial diversity, but could be more forthcoming about that dimension, through highlighting how generally welcoming and open ancient Egyptians were vis-à-vis various races and ethnicities.[41] Textual analyses that explored depictions of racial minorities such as Nubians, shows that while Egyptian textbooks’ representations of modern contributions are generally balanced and inclusive, textbook representations could be made more balanced when representing ancient Nubian civilizations and their exchanges with and contributions to ancient Egypt.[42]

Highlighting historical intercultural exchanges and racial diversity can clearly help students better respect and appreciate the contributions made by various peoples to the advancement of our shared human civilization.

Developing Students’ Critical Approaches

School curricula and classrooms can continue to play a crucial role to foster these critical engagements and reconciliatory efforts. In addition to helping teachers and students develop some crucial historical thinking approaches and skills such as those put forward by The Historical Thinking Project[43], it would be important to equip students to be able to name, render visible, and critically engage with some of the aforementioned hegemonic ideologies and discourses shaping public representations of ancient histories, including in popular culture, film, museums, school textbooks, and university lecture halls.

Such critical engagement needs to also entail encouraging students to engage in critical self-reflection vis-à-vis their own positionalities and cultural identities, and the inevitable biases and blind spots that those introduce. This would hopefully encourage students to start to unpack some of what they might have uncritically accepted and that would shape their worldviews, including their approaches to understanding and appreciating their people’s and other peoples’ historical contributions. Research undertaken in different parts of the world points to the importance of allowing the classroom to be a space that helps confront students’ misconceptions or exclusionary narratives or versions of history they might have uncritically accepted.[44]

This kind of holistic and critical engagement with public historical representations would hopefully help prepare students, and young people more generally, not only to challenge exclusionary ideologies and discourses, but also open them up towards articulating, embracing, and supporting more equitable, just, and inclusive worldviews and ideologies.

Collaborative Efforts Against Misrepresentation

As mentioned above, arguably many of those actively engaged on the opposing sides of the controversy triggered by Netflix’s Cleopatra documentary series have a common plight and cause. As I sought to demonstrate, they share the common cause of how their ancient histories might have been unjustly omitted, falsified, or even vilified. Such misrepresentations have sought not only to distance those peoples from their ancient histories, but also arguably to strip them of their sense of self-worth, value, and agency.

Perhaps this can be considered a call for the need for more dialogue, which could lead to collaboration, coalition building, and allyship among those groups. Such collaborative efforts and joint advocacy would hopefully lead to more inclusive and balanced representations of those peoples’ misrepresented histories. Further, such a collaborative approach would hopefully allow those peoples to stand in solidarity with other peoples whose histories and wisdom traditions have similarly been traditionally marginalized and misrepresented across various other contexts.

Finally, this piece hopes to also highlight the need for more critical engagement with how ancient histories are represented in media, popular culture, and textbooks, which remain generally understudied questions.

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Further Reading

  • Rashwan, Hany. “Against Eurocentrism: Decolonizing Eurocentric Literary Theories in the Ancient Egyptian and Arabic Poetics.” Howard Journal of Communications 32, no. 2 (2021): 171-196.
  • El Daly, Okasha. Egyptology: The Missing Millennium: Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. London, UK: Psychology Press, 2005.
  • Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Harvard University Press, 1997.

Web Resources

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[1] Netflix, Queen Cleopatra, 2023, https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81230204
[2] Gale, Alexander, “Cleopatra was Greek Says Egypt in Response to Netflix Controversy,” Greek Reporter, April 27, 2023, https://greekreporter.com/2023/04/27/cleopatra-greek-egypt-netflix/)
[3] Murray, Tom. “Netflix’s Black Cleopatra docudrama spurs furious Egyptian broadcaster to create rival with light-skinned lead,” The Independent, May 11, 2023, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/netflix-cleopatra-black-egypt-rival-b2336712.html
[4] The Greek Herald. “Controversy around casting for Netflix’s ‘Queen Cleopatra’ docuseries,” The Greek Herald, April 23, 2023 https://greekherald.com.au/culture/film/controversy-around-casting-for-netflixs-queen-cleopatra-docuseries/
[5] Rebal D. Netflix rewrites history: Queen Cleopatra. May 1, 2023. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwv_cIm2RRY&t=333s
[6] Morgan, Piers, “”They Are Stealing My Culture!” Bassem Youssef On Netflix’s ‘Cleopatra’ Casting,” Piers Morgan Uncensored, Apr 24, 2023. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qVKPyQ8lnc
[7] Murray, Tom. “Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra star responds to ‘fundamentally racist’ casting backlash,” The Independent, May 14, 2023, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/queen-cleopatra-netflix-cast-adele-james-b2338145.html
[8]  Foster, Stuart J., and Keith A. Crawford, eds. What Shall We Tell the Children? International Perspectives on School History Textbooks. Research in Curriculum and Instruction. IAP – Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2005.
[9] Abdou, Ehaab D. “Toward embracing multiple perspectives in world history curricula: Interrogating representations of intercultural exchanges between ancient civilizations in Quebec textbooks.” Theory & Research in Social Education 45, no. 3 (2017): 378-412.
[10] Abdou, Ehaab D. “‘Confused by multiple deities, ancient Egyptians embraced monotheism’: analysing historical thinking and inclusion in Egyptian history textbooks.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 48, no. 2 (2016): 226-251.
[11] Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York and London: Continuum, 1970/2000.
[12] Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London:  Verso Books, 1983/2006.
[13]  Clarke, John Henrik. “African-American historians and the reclaiming of African history.” Journal of African Studies 7, no. 2 (1980): 91.
[14] Abdou, Ehaab and Theodore Zervas. “Hagia Sophia controversy goes beyond Muslim-Christian tensions to treatment of ‘paganism’”. The Conversation, August 11, 2020,  https://theconversation.com/hagia-sophia-controversy-goes-beyond-muslim-christian-tensions-to-treatment-of-paganism-142966
[15] Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The memory of Egypt in Western monotheism. Harvard University Press, 1997.
[16] Paul, Heike. The myths that made America: An introduction to American studies. Verlag, 2014.
[17] Rashwan, Hany. “Intellectual Decolonization and Harmful Nativism: Arabic Knowledge Production of Ancient Egyptian Literature.” Interventions (2023): 1-38.
[18] Olupona, Jacob K. “Rethinking the Study of African Indigenous Religions: Indigenous traditions continue to define the African personality,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Spring/Summer 2021, https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/rethinking-the-study-of-african-indigenous-religions/
[19] Barnett, Stephen J. The Enlightenment and religion: the myths of modernity. Manchester University Press, 2004 and Peters, Michael A. “The enlightenment and its critics.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 51, no. 9 (2019): 886-894.
[20] Gaskell, James. “Engaging science education within diverse cultures.” Curriculum Inquiry 33, no. 3 (2003): 235-249.
[21] [21] Abdou, Ehaab and Theodore Zervas. “Hagia Sophia controversy goes beyond Muslim-Christian tensions to treatment of ‘paganism’”. The Conversation, August 11, 2020,  https://theconversation.com/hagia-sophia-controversy-goes-beyond-muslim-christian-tensions-to-treatment-of-paganism-142966
[22] Zervas, Theodore G., and Ehaab D. Abdou. “Modern education and national identity in Greece and Egypt:(Re) producing the ancient in the school textbook.” In World Yearbook of Education 2022 edited by Tröhler, Daniel, Nelli Piattoeva, and William F. Pinar, pp. 66-83. Routledge, 2021.
[23] Jhally, Sut, Mary Patierno, and Harriet Hirshorn, eds. bell hooks: Cultural criticism & transformation. Media Education Foundation, 2002. https://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Bell-Hooks-Transcript.pdf
[24] Kincheloe, Joe L., and Peter McLaren. “Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research.” In Key works in critical pedagogy, pp. 285-326. Brill, 2011.
[25] Serafy, Sam. “Egypt in Hollywood: pharaohs of the fifties.” In Consuming Ancient Egypt, edited by Sally MacDonald and Michael Rice, (London: UCL Press, 2012), 77-86.
[26]  Schroeder, Caroline T. “Ancient Egyptian Religion on the Silver Screen: Modern Anxieties about Race, Ethnicity, and Religion.” Journal of Religion & Film 7, no. 2 (2016), https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol7/iss2/1/).
[27]  Mendelson, Scott, “Why ‘Exodus’ Didn’t Need To Be Whitewashed, Forbes, December 15, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/12/15/why-exodus-didnt-need-to-be-whitewashed/?sh=6e4dd454648f).
[28] Gilmore, Claire, “Moon Knight – an Egyptologist on how the series gets the gods right”, The Conversation,  May 13, 2023, https://theconversation.com/moon-knight-an-egyptologist-on-how-the-series-gets-the-gods-right-183002).
[29] Woons, Marc, and Sebastian Weier, eds. Critical epistemologies of global politics. Bristol, UK: E-International Relations, 2017.
[30] Rashwan, Hany. “Against Eurocentrism: Decolonizing Eurocentric literary theories in the ancient Egyptian and Arabic poetics.” Howard Journal of Communications 32, no. 2 (2021): 171-196.
[31] El Daly, Okasha. Egyptology: the missing millennium: ancient Egypt in medieval Arabic writings. London, UK: Psychology Press, 2005.
[32] NL Times, “Leiden museum barred from Egypt excavations after Kemet exhibition,” NL Times, June 6, 2023, https://nltimes.nl/2023/06/06/leiden-museum-barred-egypt-excavations-kemet-exhibition
[33] Sokkari Salon “Khaled Fahmy: ‘An Cleopatra wa Netflix wa Al-Afrocentric [Khaled Fahmy: Cleopatra and Netflix and Afrocentrism],” June 3, 2023,  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=khaled+fahmy+afrocentrism
[34] Abdou, Ehaab D. “Toward embracing multiple perspectives in world history curricula: Interrogating representations of intercultural exchanges between ancient civilizations in Quebec textbooks.” Theory & Research in Social Education 45, no. 3 (2017): 378-412.
[35] Abdou, Ehaab Dyaa, and SJ Adrienna Joyce. “Anti-Blackness and Orientalism in Quebec and Manitoba Ancient History Curricula.” Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies 18, no. 1 (2020): 47-48.
[36] Abdou, Ehaab D. “Toward embracing multiple perspectives in world history curricula: Interrogating representations of intercultural exchanges between ancient civilizations in Quebec textbooks.” Theory & Research in Social Education 45, no. 3 (2017): 378-412.
[37] Abdou, Ehaab D. “Toward embracing multiple perspectives in world history curricula: Interrogating representations of intercultural exchanges between ancient civilizations in Quebec textbooks.” Theory & Research in Social Education 45, no. 3 (2017): 378-412.
[38] Dozono, Tadashi. “Eugenic ideology and the world history curriculum: How eugenic beliefs structure narratives of development and modernity.” Theory & Research in Social Education (2023): 1-30.
[39] Abdou, Ehaab. Reconciling Egyptians with their ancient past? Analyzing students’ perspectives and curriculum representations of ancient Egyptian history, Mada Masr, 2018. Retrieved from  https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/12/21/opinion/u/reconciling-egyptians-with-their-ancient-past/
[40] Abdou, Ehaab. Education, Civics, and Citizenship in Egypt: Towards More Inclusive Curricular Representations and Teaching, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/book/9783031333453
[41] Abdou, Ehaab. Reconciling Egyptians with their ancient past? Analyzing students’ perspectives and curriculum representations of ancient Egyptian history, Mada Masr, 2018. Retrieved from  https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/12/21/opinion/u/reconciling-egyptians-with-their-ancient-past/
[42] Mansour, Nesma. Discourses around Nubians: A critical discourse analysis of Egyptian social studies and history textbooks in The Struggle for Citizenship Education in Egypt edited by Jason N. Dorio, Ehaab. D. Abdou, & Nashwa Moheyeldine (New York and London: Routledge, 2018), 109-123.
[43] Historical Thinking. The Historical Thinking Project. Retrieved from https://historicalthinking.ca/historical-thinking-concepts)
[44] Létourneau, Jocelyn, and Sabrina Moisan. “Young people’s assimilation of a collective historical memory: A case study of Quebeckers of French-Canadian heritage.” Theorizing historical consciousness (2004): 109-128.

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Image Credits

© Netflix, via film-rezensionen.de

Recommended Citation

Abdou, Ehaab: Unpacking Ideologies Shaping Cleopatra’s Representations. In: Public History Weekly 11 (2023) 6, DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2023-22093.

Editorial Responsibility

Moritz Hoffmann / Barbara Pavlek Löbl

Copyright © 2023 by De Gruyter Oldenbourg and the author, all rights reserved. This work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial, educational purposes, if permission is granted by the author and usage right holders. For permission please contact the editor-in-chief (see here). All articles are reliably referenced via a DOI, which includes all comments that are considered an integral part of the publication.

The assessments in this article reflect only the perspective of the author. PHW considers itself as a pluralistic debate journal, contributions to discussions are very welcome. Please note our commentary guidelines (https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/contribute/).


Categories: 11 (2023) 6
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2023-22093

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